Mercury impact and mitigation studies

A field method to optimize dried blood spot sampling for mercury biomonitoring

This paper develops and validates a field method using dried blood spots (DBS) to measure mercury exposure in wildlife, finding a highly precise and unbiased relationship between DBS and whole blood mercury concentrations.

Methane Cycling Microbes are Important Predictors of Methylmercury Accumulation in Rice Paddies

The paper identifies methane-cycling microbes as key predictors of methylmercury accumulation in rice paddies using genomic and machine learning analyses.

Integrative network-based construction of ecologically relevant computational adverse outcome pathways for organic mercury-induced toxicity

This study constructs computational adverse outcome pathways for organic mercury toxicity in fish using an integrative network-based framework and curated toxicological data.

Urban green infrastructure fails to mitigate exposure to mercury with increasing pollution levels: evidence from corvids

This study examines mercury exposure in urban corvids and finds no evidence that green infrastructure reduces mercury contamination, despite non-linear relationships between pollution and mercury levels.

JAK2/STAT3 signaling pathway mediates methylmercury toxicity in mouse astrocyte neuronal C8-D1A cell line

This study investigates the role of the JAK2/STAT3 signaling pathway in mitigating methylmercury toxicity in astrocytes, showing that STAT3 inhibition worsens oxidative stress and cell death.

Methylmercury demethylation and volatilization by animals expressing microbial enzymes.

This study shows that animals can be engineered to express microbial enzymes to convert methylmercury into volatile mercury, reducing its toxicity and accumulation.

Mercury methylation trait dispersed across diverse anaerobic microbial guilds in a eutrophic sulfate-enriched lake

The paper identifies diverse microbial guilds in a sulfate-enriched lake that possess the mercury methylation trait, highlighting the ecological distribution of this process.

An improved hgcAB primer set and direct high throughput sequencing expand Hg-methylator diversity in nature

The paper introduces an improved hgcAB primer set and direct sequencing to better capture the diversity of mercury-methylating microbes in nature.

Widespread microbial mercury methylation genes in the global ocean

The paper identifies Nitrospina as a widespread methylmercury producer in oxic subsurface ocean waters using metagenomic evidence.